4 Fun & Interactive Classroom Display Tools!

January has flown by and how is your classroom looking this year? As an adult, I love entering spaces with beautiful displays and are well-decorated. I am sure you will agree that children feel the same too. A classroom with attractive displays entices children and makes it inviting for them to learn!

How does Lil’ but Mighty encourage learning English with physical space?

Apart from a solid curriculum and passionate teachers, having a condusive learning environment is just as important. At Lil’ but Mighty, we use our space to display tools that

1. help children in their learning even if they spend just 5 minutes looking at it

2. are interactive for children

3. creates a fun-loving environment for learning English

If you are an educator or even a parent who is thinking of how to make the learning space around your children interesting and meaningful, here are some ideas from us!

1. Synonyms wall

How it helps with learning: We all know how important it is for children to have variety in their vocabulary. Not only will having a rich vocabulary help in their writing, learning synonyms of words will help in their vocabulary MCQ too. This idea was originally seen on pinterest but it was a dead end when the link was clicked on! Here is how it looks on my Pinterest board.

How to set it up:

Firstly, thank you to McDonald’s Clementi Mall for being so generous to sponsor the French Fries boxes upon knowing our purpose for it (: the children thank you! For those of you who are unable to get the boxes, you can also use plastic cups or halved mineral water bottles to hold the sticks.

Next, start with common verbs like “walk”, “look”, “say”, “scold” etc or adjectives like “hungry”, and “angry”. These words may be easy and common but they are also the ones which children find the hardest to replace. You can glue the labels on the containers or if you would like to recycle them for other words, you can use velcro strips to attach the labels like what we have done:

Next, write down the synonyms of the various words on hard paper, ice cream sticks or tongue depressors (the bigger sticks). Put them in the respective boxes and your child can start revising the various synonyms!

How to use the tool:

You can also be deliberate in using it with your child. For instance, make sure your child names two to three synonyms from selected words by the end of the week. You can also remind your child to pick and place the sticks that he or she wants to use while writing on the table as a reminder.

2. Scrabble Wall

Scrabble is a classic word game that helps children to form words and of course, learn new words that are formed by others. We decided to take up the challenge to create a huge scrabble board at our Beauty World Centre branch with the bigger reception space that is available because… Scrabble is fun. What’s more, life-sized Scrabble!

How to set it up:

There are 15 rows and 15 columns in a Scrabble board. (These can be drawn on a piece of mahjong paper which will still make it big enough for the children to see on a wall.) For us, we made use of our tiled wall to set up the life-sized board. Although we are still in the process of labelling the special spaces on our scrabble board (double-letter points etc.) the children already started forming words once the letter tiles are out.

Speaking of the letters, they will need to be printed and do check out the list of Scrabble letters here. In order to attach the letters to the wall, we used velcro circles which can be purchased online at Lazada or even at Art Friend. Viola, the letters can now be played on the board!

Hmm, which word should I play?

How to use the tool:

Play it like you would with the board game. Teachers may also wish to put up simple rules relating to the game to instruct pupils on how to play it in class as well as the dos and don’ts.

To make learning more explicit, put up the definitions of some of the more challenging vocabulary. Also, it may be fun to put up a scoreboard to keep track of the pupil with the word that scores the most points each month!

3. Good Old Book Display

It never gets old to put up books that we love so that others can fall in love with them too. I remember how my primary school teacher, the sweetest lady by the name of Mrs Alice Tan, had recommended me the book, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and until today, it remains as one of my favourites.

Having curated books on display helps children to discover books beyond their comfort zone and for reluctant readers, narrowing their book choices makes it less overwhelming for them to pick up a book to explore.

How to set it up:

For classroom displays, it is inviting to have just a few selected books so that the beautiful covers and titles can arrest the children’s attention quickly. If you have a space constraint, you may wish to consider using the spice racks from IKEA as bookshelves like the one below:

Having curated books on display helps children to discover books beyond their comfort zone and for reluctant readers, narrowing their book choices makes it less overwhelming for them to pick up a book to explore. 

How to use the tool:

There are numerous ways that you can choose the books you want to display. Go with themes like “Books into Movies” or simply select by author or genre. You can even choose to display books according to a colour theme e.g. books with red covers or titles containing red. For teachers, be clear about whether the books are for browsing or for loan.

4. Hole to another universe

Alright, I do not think that children will improve their English by looking at this display in class for five minutes. However, it is a great conversation starter with children and it definitely adds in the element of fun to a learning space.

How to set it up:

This is a cheap and cheerful display which I love. Cut out a circle and do not worry about it not being perfect. It is better with some uneven edges. Next, just print out the words “Hole to another universe” and “Come on in!”. After cutting the words, paste them above and below the black hole on the wall.

How to use the tool:

Although this is more aesthetically pleasing than it is helpful for learning English, you will be surprised by the discussions that can generate from it. Try asking your children questions like, “Where would you like that hole to lead to?”, “How do you think having a hole like that would be useful for you?” and you may receive some really delightful responses.

Those are the 4 fun and interactive display tools that we have chosen to use on our Lil’ but Mighty learning spaces! I hope that you find them just as fun and useful as the kids would. Do try them out and let us know how it goes in the comments below!

We are on the hunt!

If you are a like-minded educator who loves creating a fun-loving learning environment like we do, you may be whom Lil’ but Mighty is looking for! We are looking for experienced teachers to join our family (: find out more about the teaching position available here!